We left Mûang Sing on Wednesday, April 12th. There is no need to weary the reader with details of the ten days’ travel before we reached Chieng Sên, or with the varied incidents of our work.
At Chieng Sên we received letters that were disappointing to my plans. The mission had unanimously decided that, partly for considerations of our health, and partly for reasons of mission policy, Mrs. McGilvary and I should take our furlough at once. We had been ten and a half years on duty in the field. My wife was not really sick, but was not well, and the doctor advised her going. I was very anxious to repeat the same tour the next year, in spite of the few malarial chills I had encountered this time. But arrangements had been completed, and there was no option but to submit.
My companion on this tour was far from well, and it was important that he should hasten home at once. What with daily rains, bad roads, and swollen streams, Mr. Irwin had a hard trip of it alone the rest of the way; and it was some little time before he was well again. For my return there was no such need of haste. The work among the Mūsô had been left, upon the whole, in hopeful condition. The power of the tribal bond, which almost annihilated individual responsibility, had been somewhat weakened. Many head men had promised to enrol themselves as Christians this season. It was certain that no tour among them could be made the coming year. I must visit them now.
The experiences of this visit were entirely like those of the previous ones—everywhere the same warm welcome, interesting night meetings, earnest consultations, and ministering to the sick; days spent in wading brooks, climbing mountain ridges, plunging down ravines, to get from one village to another, where the same round would be repeated. They would all become Christians if only another officer or two would join them. Thus it went on till we had visited nearly all of the eleven villages, and were back at Sên Chai’s and Sên Bun Yūang’s, where we began. These people were nearer to Nān Suwan’s Christian village, had known more of our religion, and, no doubt, were believers in the truth of our teaching. We talked with them till late at night, and our parting with them had a tragic interest. They were apparently on the verge of accepting the Gospel. We used our utmost endeavours to persuade them to join Cha Pū Kaw on the other side of the river, and not wait for the others who might come in afterwards. This was probably my last visit; but if any sufficient number would join the church, the mission would not desert them. If not, in all probability the offer would never be pressed upon them again.
And so it proved to be. About half of the villages were under the governor of Chieng Sên. The inhabitants of these were assured of their safety in taking the decisive step, so far as the rulers were concerned. But some of the larger villages were under the governor of Mûang Len. His opposition was a foregone conclusion, because of his interest in the opium traffic. My failure to gain a large entrance among them was one of the greatest disappointments in my whole work.
That I was not mistaken in the hopefulness of the work among the Mūsôs has since been demonstrated by the many thousand converts won among the same tribe by our Baptist brethren in the Keng Tung region. At the same time they are better prepared for such a work than were we. Their wide experience among the Karens of Burma, and the large number of educated Karens through whom they work, give them advantages in this particular work which our mission does not possess. On the other hand, it is surely to be regretted that our mission should be limited in its access to all branches alike of the Tai population found in the northern states, for which, by identity of race and language and literature, we are far better prepared than our Baptist brethren. For while, to use a legal phrase, the missionary holds a brief for no one particular tribe; while his commission and his duty is to preach the Gospel to all whom he can reach; yet it is a well recognized fact that the Tai family has largely fallen to our mission. And it will be seen from what we have said above, that we returned from this trip with enlarged views and bright prospects of opening up work among our own Tai people in the north. It will take years of hard work and a useless expenditure of time and money for any other missionary organization to reach the point at which we were ready to begin work among these people. But this is a complicated question, the tangled web of which it is not possible for any one man to unravel.
XXXII
THIRD FURLOUGH—STATION AT CHIENG RĀI
On my return to Chiengmai I found preparations well advanced for our departure on furlough. Embarking on June 7th, we reached Bangkok on June 22d, and San Francisco on August 12th, 1893. Of the events of that memorable year, I shall touch upon only two or three.
Dr. J. H. Barrows, the originator and President of the Parliament of Religions, had invited me to attend and participate in its meetings. After, perhaps, a little shock at the boldness of the idea—as if Christianity were to be put on a par with other religions—I sympathized with the object as legitimate and proper. It was merely doing on a large scale what we missionaries are called upon to do on a smaller scale every time that we hold an argument with Buddhists or other non-Christian people. The fairness of the idea, and even its very boldness, might do good; and I believe they did.